European Defence and the Trade-offs We Must (or Must Not) Make 

A roundtable discussion on one of the most urgent issues of our time: what needs to be done to shore-up European defence, and what trade-offs (if any) are necessary to do so? The debate, chaired by ACES co-director Theresa Kuhn, brings together four experts on Europe’s (geo-)politics to shed light on this question.

*Please note: there will be no livestream available for this event*

European security may well be in peril due to the combination of increasing Russian military aggression and the fraying of the US security umbrella to confront such aggression.  In response, large-scale initiatives are underway to shore-up Europe’s military security through ambitious – and expensive – rearmament and strategic initiatives in nation-states, in European Union (EU) collaboration, and in the North American Treaty Organization (NATO).  

The major debate that Europeans are only just beginning to have involves the trade-offs Europeans should or should not make for such shoring-up of defence.  On the one hand, many Europeans see shoring-up Europe’s defence as necessitating major adjustments, sacrifices, in European foreign policy goals and economic and social programs.  For instance, the costs of rearmament may require belt-tightening elsewhere in European budgets, including European social and welfare programs.  Or the demands for European security may require major shifts away from Europe’s reliance on multilateral institutions and liberal internationalism in foreign policy actions.  On the other hand, many other Europeans see such calls for sacrifices and trade-offs as exaggerated.  They see calls for rolling back Europe’s social model or dampening its full-throated support for liberal-multilaterism as unnecessary and wrong-headed. 

This roundtable shall tackle this set of controversies. We shall hear from four contrasting perspectives on European defence and the sacrifices it does – or does not – require. All attendees are encouraged to share their perspectives and join the discussion and debate.

About the speakers

Wolfgang Wagner, Professor of International Security, Free University of Amsterdam (VU)

Isabelle Duyvesteyn, Professor of International Studies and Global History, Leiden University

Paul van Hooft, Research Leader on Defence and Security, RAND Europe

Brian Burgoon, Professor of Political Economy, University of Amsterdam